The Amazing Race 31: Legs 9 to 12
Jul. 20th, 2019 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spiderbraidsBeen sitting on this long enough...
Ep 9
1. This week, let's Split (wrote this before it turned out to be the ep's title) :-) Croatia to be more precise, where for the first time in a really long time, contestants are responsible for arranging their own flights, so let's see how things hash out... Tyler/Korey and Chris/Bret get tix through Berlin that is scheduled to land at 11:20am, and after the Afghanimals semi-jokingly suggest naming their kids for their agent or dating her namesake in order to get that flight, they end up settling for a connection through Hamburg scheduled for 12:20pm, also scored by Colin/Christie and Team Fun... and where does that leave Nic/Vic? Eventually, a standby via Dusseldorf that ends up panning out for them and putting their arrival at 11:30am ahead of the Hamburg teams... (even more so when those teams get a one-hour delay at HAM, ultimately extended to 83 minutes)
2. First stop in Split is a beachside bar, to serve a bunch of drinks to a party of 6, and then pickup a clue plus sponsor gnome LOL (C/B quip that it'd be better if they could drink with them, while Nicole mentions she's the worst waitress in the world LOL) Next stop is an ancient cathedral, to pulley up the gnome with a satchel of bread to a priest in exchange for the next clue, but the most notable event is Nic/Vic being spotted by C/B
3. Detour between memorizing a poem while riding on an inflatable being pulled by a jetski (sounds like a "Yeah, how about no?" task, but Nic/Vic take it, and T/K end up switching to it), and using a metal detector to look for a chalice and 5 coins underwater... C/B comment that the water is cold for June... 1) the editors must have been gleeful when they realized that the episode was actually going to air the next June, and 2) I've been to Europe in June, so I do have first hand experience of the European sea being cold in June (though only at the toes :-)) (Bemusing line from Vic after his team's first attempt: "We'll be back with more drama... and better lyrics")
4. Surprisingly to me, everyone ends up completing the "Poetry in Motion" side, even C/B after getting stuck at 3 coins and a chalice for 2 hours (and a good chunk of the episode is spent on showing them switching back and forth) C/C are the only other team to even briefly attempt "Washed In from the Ocean" (:-\ at the name) before switching off after hearing C/B have been at it for two hours... (and during the poetry task, we manage to get a hilarious juxtaposition of C/C reading about soaring like a bird in the poem... as their inflatable hits a wake and goes up into the sky LOL)
5. Roadblock asks "Who's ready to give their marching orders?" It's essentially an honest "shell game" with Roman soldiers, and (after a montage of failed attempts) Nicole pairs off with T/K, to memorize which of 18 soldiers are wearing red ribbons... while drum major Floyd does it on his own after one attempt (apparently!) Drama comes in the form of C/C having to double back to the Detour to get the gnome while C/B are still doing the poetry, but they've still got good enough of a cushion against C/B that Christie even helps the Afghanimals on the Roadblock as well :-)
6. Pitstop is at the port, where T/K and Nic/Vic have to race rowboats to the mat... and T/K win themselves a trip to Mexico, while C/B are eliminated, and one of them quips "I'll never become a detective because I couldn't find those coins" LOL... before deciding to walk off to get a couple beers (LOL) So as improbable as it was looking at the start of the leg, we still have a win from a TAR team, and the elimination of a non-TAR team...
Ep 10
1. Disclaimer: I only caught about half of the ep as part of a "whole-season binge" marathon rerun the week after 11-12 below... So anyways, they're headed to Amsterdam, and (after a photo of the first two teams standing at a SPLIT sign followed by a "Time to Split" quip), we get a recap that Nic/Vic are the only non-TAR team left and hope to get a win, while Team Fun note that this is the same stage of the race where they got eliminated last time... Contestants arrange their own flights again, but it doesn't appear to have done much here since the first teams' flight doesn't get in until 8pm, and of what I saw of the leg, it's mainly a daytime leg...
2. Skipping to later, the Afghanimals have been holding Nic/Vic's vote in Switzerland against them (insert flashback), and would U-Turn them if given the chance... and whattaya know, they arrive at an ice-cream cart with a double U-Turn (at the traditional post-Detour placement) and do just that (On Nic's birthday to boot :-)) Nic/Vic in turn decide to take out Team Fun...
3. Today's Detours involve tandem biking to a farm with (fiberglass) cows, bringing one back, and hoisting it to the top of a church in 40 seconds or less, or tandem biking to another farm, pole vaulting across a ditch (third time TAR has done this task IIRC), getting two cheese wheels and a dozen eggs, vaulting back, and then delivering the items to a market (whew!) This is where things go south for Team Fun, since the guy at the market finds their eggs are cracked and won't take them, and before heading back, Becca threatens to throw the egg at the guy's face LOL Team Fun makes sure to check their eggs after vaulting back on the 2nd go round, but by the time they get their clue they're well in last place behind Nic/Vic (who take two attempts to hoist the cow as opposed to their one)
4. Task before pitstop involves getting in a boat in Giethoorn (no cars, just bikes and boats, a bit like Venice), and rowing around looking for two other marked sets of boats and tie them into a "boat train", before rowing to an island, and this is so time consuming, the first 4 teams are doing it at the same time (necessitating panning around a satellite map to transition between teams)... The Afghanimals note the menagerie around Giethoorn (of course reminding Leo of his cat) and there's a scene where one of them takes a bow to his groin while trying to tie the first boat... meanwhile T/K keep bumping into one boat after another, and Colin brags about getting around in a boat when he was a kid growing up in Corpus Christi :-) C/C eventually take the leg and $7,500 each, though I didn't stick around for Team Fun's elimination :-\
Ep 11
1. 2-hour finale, starting with a flight to London Gatwick, and taxi rides to the Gatwick aviation museum (which contestants learn that they have to get at a booth at Gatwick) Helicopter ride to Dover Castle and a Roadblock: "Who can't keep a secret?" Involves a somewhat convoluted cipher: Listen for keywords in a speech, then use the order of the letters in the combined keywords to arrange columns of letters into a message, that ties into the Dunkirk invasion (and of course there's one guy who saw the Nolan movie based on said invasion, the Afghanimals) Looks like the TAR teams are trying to get an all-TAR final by evicting the lone non-TAR team Nic/Vic, but Christie (who only ever had to do ONE Roadblock during her first go 14 years ago: eating caviar) is not helping their cause by being the only person to have her message rejected at first go (the "general" receiving the message sure puts some gusto in rejecting it, and later claims that he was called from lunch to get Christie's redone message)
2. Back to London to ride a speedboat, which keeps the Afghanimals enthused :-) then visit Picadilly Circus to pick up a clue from some lady in a fancy gold colored outfit called "The Golden Queen", for a Detour between memorizing a taxi route and rowing an Olympic rowboat 200m in 60s (with training from Olympic medalists even!)... Everyone tries the latter at some point, and of course we get the usual expected footage of contestants dunking in the water, and as the first three teams all pivot to taxi directions, looks like C/C are determined to grind out the rowing...
3. Meanwhile at the cabs, teams have to memorize 22 directions (7 roads, and 15 landmarks), ending at Royal Albert Hall, and T/K seem bemused that one of the roads is called Collingham because one of them has an aunt by that name LOL. The guy they have to recite the route to stands so still, mom wondered if he was a statue (not sure if serious either)
4. C/C end up grinding out the rowing (managing to squeak past the line in 59s after several attempts), and as with the cab teams, get a clue to Camden Market... T/K are sitting in their cab relieved that there are no more tasks left, which of course turns out to be foreshadowing for the Afghanimals arriving at the mat (with Winston Churchill lookalike as greeter even!) and being given one last task by Phil Keoghan himself: A scavenger hunt (!) More specifically, run all around the market, looking for a given list of items (of course tagged with a race-appropriate tag, to prevent inadvertent shoplifting) such as a camera, a mannequin, a carpet, a trunk, and a pair of purple boots and arrange them to match the display near the mat...
5. The Afghanimals still finish first, and do pushups, presumably to celebrate finally making a TAR final leg on their third try... while once again, the remaining TAR teams gang up to get rid of Nic/Vic, as T/K tells C/C where to find the boots, and although they initially miss the boot display case the first go-round, they still manage to get their display done in time to evict Nic/Vic, and as it happens, the scavenger hunt didn't change the arrival order. HUH.
Ep 12
1. Final stop, Detroit, which fancies T/K since they're from Michigan (wonder if they've been watching long enough to have heard about the so-called "hometown curse", which happened to affect C/C in their original season I might add?) First stop is a statue called the Spirit of Detroit, for a clue pickup for a Roadblock: "Who's good with numbers?" Turns out to also involve front-forward rappelling (which excites Colin, because he's afraid of heights LOL) and operating a bank vault... The Afghanimals are first to the statue and first down the building... right up until the part with the bank vault, and it appears that Leo is misinterpreting the directions on how to turn the dial to the first number, leaving the two newly-minted two-time finalists, T/K and C/C, to duke it out for the rest of the leg... C/C finish the vault first, but T/K get back into their cab before C/C because C/C's cabbie was parked on a different block (!) (There's also a soundbite from Christie about pretending that they're an hour behind since they seem to perform better that way... looks like they won't need to pretend for a bit)
2. Next stop, Hamtramck for "fowling", which rhymes with bowling, which is the point because it's basically bowling with an American football, invented at a tailgate (but of course, since alcohol was probably involved in creating this game ;-)) Toss the ball until one player's pins all get knocked over Colin manages to hit 9 pins in one throw early, but take several more to get that last pesky pin, which allows T/K to remain ahead...
3. Task three is at Jack White (Stripes)'s Third Man Records, where contestants get to press five two-colored vinyl discs (red and yellow of course) to the satisfaction of their inspector... and this is where C/C make their move by knocking out five acceptable discs at the first inspection, while T/K get three rejected first go... (Can't imagine there ever being a cassette tape equivalent of this task, at least for a final leg, since I imagine Springfield, Missouri isn't on TAR's radar)
4. Final task is not a memory task, but setting up a drum set at Hart Square, with a bunch of drummers playing the White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army" around them (the greatest rock riff of the 21st century, according to Rolling Stone), which really wreaks havoc on teammates trying to talk to each other... There is plenty of detail to be paid attention to, such as nuts on cymbals, and tighteners being properly set up and stuff, and since we've stopped following the Afghanimals since they finally opened the vault by this point, we're just following the two teams, and we're spending plenty of time on them setting up the drums, having them checked, rinse, later, repeat (with hard rock music playing in the BG)
5. And first to set up the drums correctly is C/C, getting a clue to head to Fort Wayne (no, not the one in Indiana, but this one), with T/K not far behind, hoping for green lights all the way... But nevertheless, Colin/Christie are your winners, 14 years after coming up short in their previous finale, while the only positive T/K take from their 2nd place win is that it's one better than their previous placement (of course, they quip about coming back) We finally see the Afghanimals performing all the remaining tasks in montage form, and from their shadows, looks like they finished upwards of an hour behind the other two... and as they finally arrive at the mat, we learn that that they've taken Rachel's short-lived most legs record (she did 32, they've done 34) We close on a soundbyte of Colin talking about how their spiritual approach to life held up in the pressure cooker environment of the race... classy :-)
Ep 9
1. This week, let's Split (wrote this before it turned out to be the ep's title) :-) Croatia to be more precise, where for the first time in a really long time, contestants are responsible for arranging their own flights, so let's see how things hash out... Tyler/Korey and Chris/Bret get tix through Berlin that is scheduled to land at 11:20am, and after the Afghanimals semi-jokingly suggest naming their kids for their agent or dating her namesake in order to get that flight, they end up settling for a connection through Hamburg scheduled for 12:20pm, also scored by Colin/Christie and Team Fun... and where does that leave Nic/Vic? Eventually, a standby via Dusseldorf that ends up panning out for them and putting their arrival at 11:30am ahead of the Hamburg teams... (even more so when those teams get a one-hour delay at HAM, ultimately extended to 83 minutes)
2. First stop in Split is a beachside bar, to serve a bunch of drinks to a party of 6, and then pickup a clue plus sponsor gnome LOL (C/B quip that it'd be better if they could drink with them, while Nicole mentions she's the worst waitress in the world LOL) Next stop is an ancient cathedral, to pulley up the gnome with a satchel of bread to a priest in exchange for the next clue, but the most notable event is Nic/Vic being spotted by C/B
3. Detour between memorizing a poem while riding on an inflatable being pulled by a jetski (sounds like a "Yeah, how about no?" task, but Nic/Vic take it, and T/K end up switching to it), and using a metal detector to look for a chalice and 5 coins underwater... C/B comment that the water is cold for June... 1) the editors must have been gleeful when they realized that the episode was actually going to air the next June, and 2) I've been to Europe in June, so I do have first hand experience of the European sea being cold in June (though only at the toes :-)) (Bemusing line from Vic after his team's first attempt: "We'll be back with more drama... and better lyrics")
4. Surprisingly to me, everyone ends up completing the "Poetry in Motion" side, even C/B after getting stuck at 3 coins and a chalice for 2 hours (and a good chunk of the episode is spent on showing them switching back and forth) C/C are the only other team to even briefly attempt "Washed In from the Ocean" (:-\ at the name) before switching off after hearing C/B have been at it for two hours... (and during the poetry task, we manage to get a hilarious juxtaposition of C/C reading about soaring like a bird in the poem... as their inflatable hits a wake and goes up into the sky LOL)
5. Roadblock asks "Who's ready to give their marching orders?" It's essentially an honest "shell game" with Roman soldiers, and (after a montage of failed attempts) Nicole pairs off with T/K, to memorize which of 18 soldiers are wearing red ribbons... while drum major Floyd does it on his own after one attempt (apparently!) Drama comes in the form of C/C having to double back to the Detour to get the gnome while C/B are still doing the poetry, but they've still got good enough of a cushion against C/B that Christie even helps the Afghanimals on the Roadblock as well :-)
6. Pitstop is at the port, where T/K and Nic/Vic have to race rowboats to the mat... and T/K win themselves a trip to Mexico, while C/B are eliminated, and one of them quips "I'll never become a detective because I couldn't find those coins" LOL... before deciding to walk off to get a couple beers (LOL) So as improbable as it was looking at the start of the leg, we still have a win from a TAR team, and the elimination of a non-TAR team...
Ep 10
1. Disclaimer: I only caught about half of the ep as part of a "whole-season binge" marathon rerun the week after 11-12 below... So anyways, they're headed to Amsterdam, and (after a photo of the first two teams standing at a SPLIT sign followed by a "Time to Split" quip), we get a recap that Nic/Vic are the only non-TAR team left and hope to get a win, while Team Fun note that this is the same stage of the race where they got eliminated last time... Contestants arrange their own flights again, but it doesn't appear to have done much here since the first teams' flight doesn't get in until 8pm, and of what I saw of the leg, it's mainly a daytime leg...
2. Skipping to later, the Afghanimals have been holding Nic/Vic's vote in Switzerland against them (insert flashback), and would U-Turn them if given the chance... and whattaya know, they arrive at an ice-cream cart with a double U-Turn (at the traditional post-Detour placement) and do just that (On Nic's birthday to boot :-)) Nic/Vic in turn decide to take out Team Fun...
3. Today's Detours involve tandem biking to a farm with (fiberglass) cows, bringing one back, and hoisting it to the top of a church in 40 seconds or less, or tandem biking to another farm, pole vaulting across a ditch (third time TAR has done this task IIRC), getting two cheese wheels and a dozen eggs, vaulting back, and then delivering the items to a market (whew!) This is where things go south for Team Fun, since the guy at the market finds their eggs are cracked and won't take them, and before heading back, Becca threatens to throw the egg at the guy's face LOL Team Fun makes sure to check their eggs after vaulting back on the 2nd go round, but by the time they get their clue they're well in last place behind Nic/Vic (who take two attempts to hoist the cow as opposed to their one)
4. Task before pitstop involves getting in a boat in Giethoorn (no cars, just bikes and boats, a bit like Venice), and rowing around looking for two other marked sets of boats and tie them into a "boat train", before rowing to an island, and this is so time consuming, the first 4 teams are doing it at the same time (necessitating panning around a satellite map to transition between teams)... The Afghanimals note the menagerie around Giethoorn (of course reminding Leo of his cat) and there's a scene where one of them takes a bow to his groin while trying to tie the first boat... meanwhile T/K keep bumping into one boat after another, and Colin brags about getting around in a boat when he was a kid growing up in Corpus Christi :-) C/C eventually take the leg and $7,500 each, though I didn't stick around for Team Fun's elimination :-\
Ep 11
1. 2-hour finale, starting with a flight to London Gatwick, and taxi rides to the Gatwick aviation museum (which contestants learn that they have to get at a booth at Gatwick) Helicopter ride to Dover Castle and a Roadblock: "Who can't keep a secret?" Involves a somewhat convoluted cipher: Listen for keywords in a speech, then use the order of the letters in the combined keywords to arrange columns of letters into a message, that ties into the Dunkirk invasion (and of course there's one guy who saw the Nolan movie based on said invasion, the Afghanimals) Looks like the TAR teams are trying to get an all-TAR final by evicting the lone non-TAR team Nic/Vic, but Christie (who only ever had to do ONE Roadblock during her first go 14 years ago: eating caviar) is not helping their cause by being the only person to have her message rejected at first go (the "general" receiving the message sure puts some gusto in rejecting it, and later claims that he was called from lunch to get Christie's redone message)
2. Back to London to ride a speedboat, which keeps the Afghanimals enthused :-) then visit Picadilly Circus to pick up a clue from some lady in a fancy gold colored outfit called "The Golden Queen", for a Detour between memorizing a taxi route and rowing an Olympic rowboat 200m in 60s (with training from Olympic medalists even!)... Everyone tries the latter at some point, and of course we get the usual expected footage of contestants dunking in the water, and as the first three teams all pivot to taxi directions, looks like C/C are determined to grind out the rowing...
3. Meanwhile at the cabs, teams have to memorize 22 directions (7 roads, and 15 landmarks), ending at Royal Albert Hall, and T/K seem bemused that one of the roads is called Collingham because one of them has an aunt by that name LOL. The guy they have to recite the route to stands so still, mom wondered if he was a statue (not sure if serious either)
4. C/C end up grinding out the rowing (managing to squeak past the line in 59s after several attempts), and as with the cab teams, get a clue to Camden Market... T/K are sitting in their cab relieved that there are no more tasks left, which of course turns out to be foreshadowing for the Afghanimals arriving at the mat (with Winston Churchill lookalike as greeter even!) and being given one last task by Phil Keoghan himself: A scavenger hunt (!) More specifically, run all around the market, looking for a given list of items (of course tagged with a race-appropriate tag, to prevent inadvertent shoplifting) such as a camera, a mannequin, a carpet, a trunk, and a pair of purple boots and arrange them to match the display near the mat...
5. The Afghanimals still finish first, and do pushups, presumably to celebrate finally making a TAR final leg on their third try... while once again, the remaining TAR teams gang up to get rid of Nic/Vic, as T/K tells C/C where to find the boots, and although they initially miss the boot display case the first go-round, they still manage to get their display done in time to evict Nic/Vic, and as it happens, the scavenger hunt didn't change the arrival order. HUH.
Ep 12
1. Final stop, Detroit, which fancies T/K since they're from Michigan (wonder if they've been watching long enough to have heard about the so-called "hometown curse", which happened to affect C/C in their original season I might add?) First stop is a statue called the Spirit of Detroit, for a clue pickup for a Roadblock: "Who's good with numbers?" Turns out to also involve front-forward rappelling (which excites Colin, because he's afraid of heights LOL) and operating a bank vault... The Afghanimals are first to the statue and first down the building... right up until the part with the bank vault, and it appears that Leo is misinterpreting the directions on how to turn the dial to the first number, leaving the two newly-minted two-time finalists, T/K and C/C, to duke it out for the rest of the leg... C/C finish the vault first, but T/K get back into their cab before C/C because C/C's cabbie was parked on a different block (!) (There's also a soundbite from Christie about pretending that they're an hour behind since they seem to perform better that way... looks like they won't need to pretend for a bit)
2. Next stop, Hamtramck for "fowling", which rhymes with bowling, which is the point because it's basically bowling with an American football, invented at a tailgate (but of course, since alcohol was probably involved in creating this game ;-)) Toss the ball until one player's pins all get knocked over Colin manages to hit 9 pins in one throw early, but take several more to get that last pesky pin, which allows T/K to remain ahead...
3. Task three is at Jack White (Stripes)'s Third Man Records, where contestants get to press five two-colored vinyl discs (red and yellow of course) to the satisfaction of their inspector... and this is where C/C make their move by knocking out five acceptable discs at the first inspection, while T/K get three rejected first go... (Can't imagine there ever being a cassette tape equivalent of this task, at least for a final leg, since I imagine Springfield, Missouri isn't on TAR's radar)
4. Final task is not a memory task, but setting up a drum set at Hart Square, with a bunch of drummers playing the White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army" around them (the greatest rock riff of the 21st century, according to Rolling Stone), which really wreaks havoc on teammates trying to talk to each other... There is plenty of detail to be paid attention to, such as nuts on cymbals, and tighteners being properly set up and stuff, and since we've stopped following the Afghanimals since they finally opened the vault by this point, we're just following the two teams, and we're spending plenty of time on them setting up the drums, having them checked, rinse, later, repeat (with hard rock music playing in the BG)
5. And first to set up the drums correctly is C/C, getting a clue to head to Fort Wayne (no, not the one in Indiana, but this one), with T/K not far behind, hoping for green lights all the way... But nevertheless, Colin/Christie are your winners, 14 years after coming up short in their previous finale, while the only positive T/K take from their 2nd place win is that it's one better than their previous placement (of course, they quip about coming back) We finally see the Afghanimals performing all the remaining tasks in montage form, and from their shadows, looks like they finished upwards of an hour behind the other two... and as they finally arrive at the mat, we learn that that they've taken Rachel's short-lived most legs record (she did 32, they've done 34) We close on a soundbyte of Colin talking about how their spiritual approach to life held up in the pressure cooker environment of the race... classy :-)
